Too Far Gone
by ambivia
Summary: When the world goes to shit, humanity goes with it, and survival becomes a trick of the clock. The survivors' camp of Fairy Tail learns that when the dead hunt you down, it isn't death you should be afraid of; it's those who've managed to avoid it, and the lengths they'll go to to keep it that way. (or: the walking dead au absolutely no-one wanted) —multi, zombie au. for Marcy.
1. I

**notes:** For _**chokecherries**_ , who never deserved this.  
The yin to my yang; the chuckle to my chortle; the fluff to my angst; the writer of a zombie!au far superior to this traumatic piece of shit.

 _*Please be aware of potentially triggering material. Warnings in the end notes._

* * *

 ** _too_**  
 ** _far_**  
 ** _gone_**

* * *

 **{** I **}**

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 **Jellal**

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The only thing that can top a bad nightmare is a worse one. He didn't realise that until after the world went to shit, but the irony isn't lost on him.

You know when you wake up from a dream that you can't quite remember? It haunts you through the day, and you can deny it or try to ignore it — hell, it's not even too hard to forget about, but there is no doubt that the remnants of it feel like memories muddled with reality. And those semi-elusive flashbacks don't stop nagging at you, floating ahead of you just out of reach, until it gets to a point where you give up trying to catch smoke with your fingers. You give up and wait for the day to end, if only so you can sleep again and satisfy your curiosity. Re-visit the nightmare, so to speak. Get closure.

That's his approach to this here situation. It's fine, see; he'll fall asleep again soon anyway — or close enough — so it's not worth making a fuss over.

But if he _could_ go back in time, and somehow tell himself a year ago that the hell his life was back then was as good as it was gonna get for him, right now, he'd probably be six feet under with a bullet in his rotting skull. But that's all just beggar's talk. The status quo changed, he went with it and adapted, and that's just how it is. That's how it's always been. Prison taught him that well enough.

Rolling a sharp-edged rock under the sole of his shoe, Jellal squints up at the skyline. "It's surreal that I'd prefer death row to this. Kind of like a dream, looking back."

"I've had better."

Meredy makes a rude noise from somewhere behind. "Yeah, Ultear. We know. We do share a room with you every night." He hears the gravel shift, followed by a muffled thud. "Ow! Did you just— did you just throw a _pebble_ at me? Ultear! Hey, I'm talking to y— _Ow_ , dammit." When he turns around, her scowl is laughably pronounced as she brushes dirt off her khaki jacket. "Could you not? Please? It's a nightmare trying to keep stuff clean."

Ultear mutters a derisive comment under her breath that Jellal didn't really need to hear, and stomps past him to scan the wreckage of cars scattered across the road.

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* * *

 **Lucy**

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"Stay with me! Hey, hey, no, don't close your eyes— Look at me, keep your eyes on me!"

She blinks blearily. A shadow is blocking the glaring fluorescent light from up above. Her shoulder burns, and her shirt is sticky with blood. "M-My ma," she tries to say. "I need to save—" She wills strength into her heavy limbs, pushing her body up as far as it will go. Just the barest of movements makes her shoulder scream and leaves her head echoing with the pain.

"I know, but you're in no position to be saving anybody and you're gonna bleed out. You need to stay here." She's pushed down with what feels like the strength of ten men. "Just stay down, you gotta rest. We just need to find a way out of—" He cuts off with a curse. When he moves away from her, she's blinded by the light so suddenly that it leaves her reeling.

Fierce snarling deafens her, but she still hears his pants and gasps as he wrestles with the dead.

Lucy moves to get up, and grits her teeth against the scream that threatens to rip itself out of her throat. Tears streak her cheeks. She can't move her right arm at all, it's not responding, it's like it's not even there — but she doesn't let herself focus on that for too long, swallowing the budding panic, and forces herself into a sitting position.

It's now that Lucy realises she's gasping, shivering, struggling for strength. "Ma!" she screams, looking around wildly. She can't see her, she doesn't know where she's gone— "Ma!" She shakily scrambles to her feet. "Ma, where are you? _Ma!_ "

But Lucy's voice is lost in the hell unfolding around her.

It was never meant to be like this — the prison was supposed to be safe, they weren't supposed to be able to get in here. The disarray around her, the stench of blood weighing down the air, the shrieks and shouts, the blinking lights, the flurry of feet and flesh and weapons — it feels like some freakish nightmare, something she should be able to wait out, a hell that should end with the morning's rising sun. Because this can't really be happening. This is home, this is _safety_ , because they _can't_ have gotten _in here_ —

A chilling scream from her right breaks her thought process. When she looks, all she can see of the man is his writhing lower body as he's devoured by two biters. She gasps and her knees buckle beneath her. All she can do is stare as he shrieks and struggles, his legs kicking wildly before one of the biters grabs one and tears into his thigh. Its eyes are sunken into its skull, glazed with a milky film; skin like paper, blood like mud oozing sluggishly from a gaping hole in it's neck. The man screams like an animal as it rears back, ripping his flesh away as it does — Lucy sees arteries spurt and the wet gleam of exposed muscle tissue as the leg thrashes weakly.

The biter looks up and catches her eyes. Bloodied lips curl back as a guttural sound gurgles out of its mouth.

She whimpers, frozen to the spot. She can't look away, as if her eyes are glued to the horror of what she's seeing. It — _she_ , Lucy realises — has started to move towards her, clambering clumsy over the leg of the victim. The man's screams have been replaced with high-pitched keening like some desperate whine of dying animal; he's stopped thrashing, but his fingers spasm, grabbing at nothing as the other biter twists its fingers in the mess of his gaping stomach.

"Oh, God." Lucy scrambles back on her hands and feet, yelping in pain as the movement jars her right arm. "No, no, no, please—" She sobs in terror as the biter advances. The soles of her boots slip on the blood-slick floor.

A hand, stiff and bloodless and curled like a claw, reaches for her as the biter looms over her, the light source once again blocked from her gaze. Rotting teeth gnash as blood spits from its mouth.

Lucy screams.

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* * *

 **Natsu**

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.

Now that they're up here, Natsu can see that they made the right decision climbing to higher ground. It's the perfect vantage point — guarded, protected, with one hell of a view. It's even better than he was expecting, if he's honest with himself. Sure, he was hoping they would have complete view of the main street below, perhaps a decent scope across the roofs of shorter skyscrapers. But in reality, he has clear sights in every direction. It's even taller than it looked from down below, stretching high above all the neighbouring buildings.

He grins as a fierce breeze ruffles his air, breathing in deeply. The cold wind makes his eyes sting, and he loves it.

Happy squirms on his back, gently tightening his hold around his neck. "Natsu…"

"Sorry, Happy." He crouches down so the kid can clamber off his back. As soon as his feet touch the ground, Natsu turns back to lean down over the steep incline of the emergency stairs. "You okay, Wendy? Need a hand?"

A small grunt sound in reply.

He laughs, turns, and leans back against the shallow wall to wait for her. It's not a minute later that she's joining him, huffing from the exertion as Charle jumps daintily from her back.

"Well, it could have been worse," the latter decides, looking around scrutinisingly. "We certainly chose the right one to scale, even if it was a bit of a waste of energy."

"I bet you can see the whole city from here!" Happy crows, grinning from ear to ear. His scruffy blue hair shifts in the wind which is constantly ruffling the messy tufts covering his forehead. He runs to Natsu and leans forward to look down. Short for an eleven year old and over-eager to boot, Happy stands out like a sore thumb against the industrial backdrop. "We're miles up! Look, look! The cars and zombies look like ants."

Charle huffs. "Don't use that silly word, I can't take it seriously." But she, too, takes her place beside him and glances down apprehensively. And Natsu can't help but notice the flash of excitement reflected in her own eyes.

He shrugs away from the wall and moves towards Wendy, who's still crouching on the ground. "Quite the climb, huh?" he laughs, gentle pulling the straps of her backpack from her shoulders. She works to help him, manoeuvring her arms out of the straps — when she catches his eye, the girl's red-faced and grinning.

"Worth it though," she pants lightly. "How high up do you suppose we are?"

Natsu shrugs, uncapping the metal bottle he just dug out of the bag. "Dunno." He takes a swig of water before wiping his mouth and handing it to her. She takes it readily and gulps. "High enough. That's all that matters, I guess. We'll be safe for the night, and we have the whole day to set up for tomorrow. So unless a thunderstorm or some variance of said calamity hits—" he glances at the clear blue sky surreptitiously and smiles smug and wide "—it looks like we've won ourselves another quiet day."

Wendy wipes her forehead with the back of her hand before straightening up and stretching. Screwing her eyes shut and wrinkling her nose, she hums happily. "Finally~!"

For a second, the grime and scratches disappear, and Natsu catches a glimpse of the innocent sixteen year old girl underneath. Then the mask snaps back, and she's got the scarred face of a survivor. Moments like that give him emotional whiplash, but he can't find it in himself to wish they'd stop — if anything, he's thankful he can still remember a time before a good night's sleep entailed scaling skyscrapers.

"Don't say that so lightly or you'll jinx it," Charle grumbles, rejoining them and gladly accepting the bottle from her sister.

"We should probably get some sort of tarp up, get some shade from this sun," Wendy notes, airing out her sweat-soaked clothes and squinting up at the sky. "That fire-escape took hours. I wonder if it might not have been easier to just go through the building itself…" Pausing, she throws a furtive glance back at the door chained shut on the far side of the roof which no doubt leads down to the top floor. The look on her face speaks volumes: _or maybe not._

Natsu just snorts and turns to rejoin Happy on the makeshift balcony. The kid's scouting out their new location, pointing out skyscrapers in the distance with an eager eye. And he _was_ right. The biters look like tiny insects, darker spots on the dirty grey. From up here, they seem almost harmless, milling around slowly in an aimless wander. He can't even hear the gurgling snarls.

"Natsu, you don't think there might be other people on the other roofs, do you?"

Natsu purses his lips. "If there's anyone else surviving in Magnolia, Happy, they'll be hiding just like us. That's for sure." He glances back down at the dark mass of walkers a few streets down, one that they'd only managed to bypass through an alley after twenty minutes of haphazard planning and a genius stroke of luck. "The higher up you are around here, the safer. You don't want to be stuck on the ground with them in a city this big. The herd wouldn't leave you a chance."

"Unless you have walls," Happy points out, leaning forward for a better view. "Like Fairy Tail. Right, Wendy?"

She startles Natsu by suddenly swinging out over the railing to his left. Looking far across the skyscrapers, hair flying and eyes shining, she throws them an exuberant grin. "Right, Happy!"

"I just hope we can get back in one piece," Charle grumbles from somewhere behind them.

"We will," Wendy nods without a shred of doubt in her voice.

Natsu looks from it to back up at the clear sky. "Yeah." He nods. "We're getting there."

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* * *

 **Mirajane**

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.

Mirajane wrinkles her nose at the smell her brother carries into the kitchen along with the stiff corpse of some half-starved dog. He slumps it on the table unceremoniously. Her exasperation at his dramatics takes on a dangerous edge at the sight of the mud he's dragged across the wooden floor — and then all but disappears when she sees his face. "Elfman? What—?"

Mira's almost scared to ask, but one look at her brother — her brother, who's just returned from a two day run to a nearby mart for supplies, who should be crowing with satisfaction like he usually is, giving her whatever unnecessary can of preserved fruit he managed to grab for her this time — tells her all she needs to know.

So smooth its as if its routine, she slides a knife out of the wooden block at the end of the aisle, and pulls the dog towards her. It's heavier than she was expecting, which is a pleasant surprise. After all, food is food, and the less time they have to spend gathering it, the better. Once she's sawed off the four paws and the head, she goes about skinning the hide while Elfman washes his hands in the sink. The stench in the kitchen is heavy — metallic, chokingly strong, disgustingly over-familiar. Blood. Fresh and bright and runny, trickling through her fingers; congealed and sticking to her brother's skin; a dark paint staining his shirt; or stringy like rubber, like silly string for children, under her knife.

Mirajane's well used to the sight of blood at this point — how could she not be? — but even she has to acknowledge the impressiveness of the sheer variety in her kitchen this morning.

Without turning from the tap, Elfman throws the window open, which lets in a much needed relief of fresh air from the suffocating stink.

Soon enough, she stops noticing the smell, and the blood on her hand dries, hardens, flakes and cracks from the creases of her hands as she works on the carcass. Soon enough, the dog is a log of tough, gamy meat on her kitchen table, and a pile of fur, viscera, a head and a tail. Soon enough, she's added the unwanted bones to the reject pile. Soon enough, her brother has switched off the tap and is rubbing his pruned, trembling hands together as if to warm them after their prolonged soak in the cold water.

"How many?" Mira eventually asks.

"Just one. Laki got bit, and Wakaba went and got himself ripped apart in the process of going back for her."

Mirajane swallows deeply. Suddenly, the memories of bar-tending, of wolf whistles and harmless flirting and _'just the usual?'_ have taken on a whole new importance. And with practice comes precision— _efficiency_. Mirajane prepares to lock the precious moments up in her mind alongside the laughter of her little sister without delving too deep into her treasure chest of mourning. "Wakaba and Laki."

Elfman shakes his head. "No. Wakaba, he… Before they grabbed him, he amputated her hand. Cut it off with a saw, would you believe. And Laki, she stayed conscious through the whole thing, ran out with us, the car, everything. She only passed out as we were passing through the gates here. Real brave. Took it like the best of men."

Mira puts down the knife. She lets the last rivulets of blood drip from her fingers onto the discarded pile of inedible dog before turning the tap and letting the water rinse the stains away. "And his body?"

Elfman shakes his head. "No body left. We didn't stick around."

"And?"

She rubs at the coagulated clots under her nails. He knows what she's asking, knows exactly the meaning behind the vague words and purposeful avoidance.

"Macao," Elfman says simply. "It was a nice, clean shot. Straight through the skull."

Mira smiles, her eyes dry and distant. "That's good at least," she murmurs, watching detachedly as the water runs red.

.

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* * *

 **Erza**

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.

When Erza comes to, it doesn't take her long to realise that something is severely amiss. As her mind, clouded from blood loss, comes back into focus, she becomes aware of the shouting emanating from the front of the caravan.

The moving vehicle tosses her around like what feels like a rag doll as she hastily gets up from the lower part of the bunk bed and makes her way to Gray and Gajeel. She can see that Gray's still got his hands on the wheel and his foot on the accelerator, but his head and attention are turned towards Gajeel in the passenger seat.

The corner of one of the tables stuck to the walls jams into her hip as she jumps forward. Erza winces, rubbing at the tender spot — no doubt that's gonna be a bruise tomorrow. Their loud argument, the one that woke her up, is now contributing to a throbbing headache. Blood loss isn't new to her, but when you throw in a moving caravan and two loud angry men, it's no lie that she's woken up in better moods.

"Guys," she tries, but it's a pathetic attempt and seems to go unnoticed.

"I can't fucking believe— _Turn back!_ Turn back _now_ , or so God help me—"

"What, you gonna wrestle this wheel from me and take us back? Is that it? Drive us back into the swarm and get us out in one piece, you arrogant son of a bitch?"

"Not you. I'll damn well throw you to them, fucker, you can take my word for it!"

Gray barks out a laugh. "I'd like to see you try."

The man's a sight to be seen. His face, to Erza, looks pale as death. Eyes dark and furious and hands curled into threatening fists around the steering wheel. In stark contrast, a vein throbs in Gajeel's temple, blood colouring his cheeks as his whole body radiates tension. His biceps twitch, and like a vision of the future, Erza can see clear as day the image of Gajeel leaping across the seat and punching Gray in the face so hard he's knocked out cold. It doesn't take a lot of imagination, and it's by far enough to spur her into action.

"Stop it," she cuts in before Gajeel can hiss another retort Gray's way. "Stop it _now_. This isn't the place or time for you two to be doing this."

"The longer we leave this, the more fucking time we lose," Gajeel growls at her without missing a heartbeat.

She can see in his eyes that this isn't something he'll back down on — but when has Gajeel Redfox ever backed down from anything? The twenty-two year old is brash and impulsive and stubborn to a fault. And she's managed him so far, so damn well she'll do it again now.

But before she can get a word in, Gray interrupts her. "Going back is equivalent to signing a death warrant. Now, don't get me wrong, man, I'd _jump_ at the chance of washing my hands of you once and for all, but quite fucking frankly—" he jolts the wheel right before the caravan careens off the road to the grassy ditch by the side "—I value my own life too much to waste it on a piece of shit like you. I value _Erza's_ life, and _Levy's_ life too much to let you waste them playing some fucking hero."

Erza purses her lips, irritated. While she wouldn't have put it exactly like that, it's pretty much the same point she wanted to make. However, Gray's tactless words do little to simmer Gajeel's temper.

"I'm gonna do you a favour and pretend those words didn't just come out of your mouth, Fullbuster, or you'd be a dead man," he grits out. And Erza's thinks she believes it — every word. She's seen what this man can do. That's exactly why the settlement took him in in the first place; it's exactly why he's out here on the most dangerous of runs, a trip into the city — because Gajeel's a survivor, and he'll do whatever it takes to keep it that way.

But so is Gray Fullbuster. And that's why she bites her tongue.

"Look," Gray said after a pause to take a deep breath in attempts to keep himself calm. "We need to be realistic. We need to be rational out here, okay, Gajeel? Or we'll get ourselves killed — and our death means Fairy Tail's death, you know that. We needed supplies. We couldn't get them. Now our job is to get back to Fairy Tail and and come up with another search plan—"

"Fuck that! Our job is to keep people _alive_ , and what you did back there—"

"I did what I had to do—!"

" _You left three people to DIE, Fullbuster!"_ Gajeel roars. "That is never the right thing to do!"

"It was the only thing we _could_ do! It wasn't easy and it wasn't pleasant but we'd be dead right now if it weren't for that choice! Get that through your thick skull!"

Giving up any pretence of paying attention to the road, Gray slams his foot on the brke and brings the car to a shuddering halt. Erza grabs hold of his chair to keep from falling forward. She hears the shallow thuds of things falling to the ground behind her — pots and sacks of food and heavy guns and God knows what else.

The engine slowly grinds to a stop and they're left in an all-consuming silence. Utterly exposed.

Outside the caravan, nothing moves. The abandoned cars by the side of the road are stationary, eerily silent, laden with settled highway dirt. No birds, no crickets, no shouts of children or babble from vacationing families. A non-existent breeze tries and fails to rustle through the leaves of dried-out branches.

Erza is back in the silent summer.

It is Levy's pained groan from behind her that rouses her into motion.

"Listen to me," she says in an urgent tone to both men. "You guys don't get along — I get that. I don't care if you're at each others' throats from here 'til the day you kick the bucket. I couldn't care less. But right now, here, you need to cut this bullshit. Cut all of it the hell out."

Gajeel looks like he's about to interrupt her so she shoots up a warning hand to stop him before he can start. "No. _Stop_. Gajeel, I don't know if you're right or wrong, I'll admit it. 'Cause I don't know what we should have done, either—" because it's impossible for Erza to put the guilt in her gut into words "—but whatever that answer was, it's too late now. What's done is done. We can't do anything about it anymore, so we keep going, alright? We get to Fairy Tail, we explain the situation, and we stick together. You hear me, Gray? We survive by _sticking together._ You're both idiots who're going to get us killed unless you can accept that reality."

Erza finishes just as Levy moans again, more insistent this time, and the sound seems to wipe away any retorts Gajeel was thinking of making. He gets up without sparing a single glance for Gray or Erza, and makes his way to the back of the vehicle. Erza watches silently as he crouches beside Levy's curled up form on the padded table seats. She can't see his face, but she can imagine the glower on his face as he gently brushes hair away from her forehead. She hears her whine quietly, and turns back to the front.

Suddenly exhausted, Erza slumps into the empty passenger seat. Her head is thrumming like an angry bee hive, the headache insistent and loud and brutal. She sighs and gingerly rubs at the pressure point in her temple. "Step on it, Gray. Let's go."

Without saying a word, Gray starts up the engine and the caravan begins to move.

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* * *

 **Cana**

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.

When she first sees it, Cana almost walks right on by the mess of guts and gore on the road. It's nothing new, not nowadays, and it's fresh enough to get her moving that little bit faster.

But it's that stupid cigar that does it. And when she looks back, she can't deny to herself that she recognises that ridiculous plume of hair.

"Well… shit."

She turns back and crouches by the body. "Agh, fucking hell. Stinks." She had half a mind to bury him, the poor guy, but now… He'd always been good to her, always looked out for her both in the settlement and before. And he'd taught her to look out for herself too, showed her all the different ways she had to protect herself, drilled into her the rules for surviving in this world.

That's what Cana chooses to honour, and that's why she walks out of town an hour later with a sack full of canned fruit, not having spared another single glance for the body. After eight months in the open, she's at least learnt to lock away her damned sentimentality like Wakaba had always been telling her to. And even in death, he's still guiding her, as ridiculously ironic as that is. The thought makes her crack a smile; replaces the image of the red splatter on the tarmac with the smiling middle-aged man she loved in childhood.

She's closer to Fairy Tail than she thought. She's close to home.

Eight months may have dimmed the memory, but the fire inside her — the fire that blazes just by the very mention of the home that kept her alive — is burning as strong as ever. She remembers the faces of her friends, the warmth of their arms. She remembers the walls that loomed tall and protective like the shoulders of God.

These eight months were good to her, taught her a lot — that she can't deny. But she knows it in her gut, just like she knew she had to leave all that time ago, that she's ready to go back home.

And this time, _after_ all this time, Cana finally isn't returning alone.

* * *

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 _ **Trigger warnings:** violence and gore (graphic), meat preparation_ _(graphic), corpses (mildly graphic), minor character death (off-screen)._


	2. II

**notes—** sorry this took so long, oh my goodness. how are we? still hanging in there? i hope you all had stellar holidays and that winter treated you well! also idk if many of you follow twd but, for those who do, thoughts on s6? MAGGIE, MY HEART. i think the first half was better than the second but in general, not too shabby, hmm. anyway, please enjoy this new chapter, and i'll see you again soon!

 _*Please be aware of potentially triggering material. Warnings in the end notes._

* * *

 ** _too_**  
 ** _far_**  
 ** _gone_**

* * *

 **{** II **}**

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 **Bixlow**

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.

The first time Bixlow met Lisanna, she was muddy, bloody, and holding him at gunpoint. It was a dark night after a cloudy, overcast day, and he had just finished cutting off the last biter heads with a blunted axe when she'd run out of her hiding place in a nearby bush and tackled him to the ground—

"Bixlow, quit your daydreaming or you'll get us all killed," Evergreen hisses at him, effectively garnering his attention. "Your safety's still on, for God's sake."

He purses his lips and glances down at his weapon. With a quick flick of his thumb, he takes off the safety, cocks the weapon and locks the butt of the rifle against his shoulder. He swears he can _hear_ Freed's eyeroll; after all, Bixlow's so often the cause of them, it's like they're old friends. Him and the eyeroll, that is, although he and Freed go way back as well—

"Freed, hit him over the head and knock some sense into him, or we'll never get this stupid house checked."

Bixlow ducks down, something he seems to have far too much practice with, while Freed half-heartedly swings out to slap him. He snickers, "Ever, there are more practical ways—"

A distant snarl cuts him off. They all freeze, eyes swivelling around for the source. It sounds again, closer than last time. Bixlow tenses, and flicks his thumb against the safety again by habit. Just making sure. He pulls down the visor of his metal mask, leaving only his mouth free to breathe and speak. "Right." Evergreen and Freed fall into line in front and behind him respectfully just as they've done so many times before. He points forward with two fingers, and crouches cautiously. "Playtime's over. Let's go."

They maintain their positions, moving quietly forward through the empty foyer, and then break away like planned. Evergreen goes ahead into living room area, Bixlow cautiously climbs the steps to scout out upstairs, and Freed makes sure the front door doesn't fall closed behind them before moving down the corridor towards where the kitchen should be.

The family who lived here before hung framed pictures along the wall by the staircase. Typical holiday photographs, with wide smiles and sunburned skin, the ocean shining blue and vast in the background. _All of them are probably dead now_ , Bixlow thinks, scanning the faces of two young boys. _Definitely._

But it's nothing he hasn't seen before. Not the sea, he hasn't seen that before, not in person, but the pictures themselves — most houses they raid have similar sentimentality draped all over them, that's a guarantee. Most families leave the same stains, lived the same lives, lost the same houses, died the same deaths. Bixlow's seen it all before.

Right as he steps out onto the upstairs landing, peering cautiously into the first open bedroom he sees, Evergreen screams.

" _Shit—_ " He sprints back down the stairs, not sparing the other rooms a glance, and stumbles into the living room to find her gagging behind a sofa.

"Ever...?" he pants, worry quickly melding into poorly-disguised exasperation. One glance around affirms that there are no biters in sight, no immediate threats, and that she's in no imminent mortal danger. "The hell—?"

Freed suddenly jumps in from the open kitchen entrance, knife in hand and eyes wild. Bixlow cocks an eyebrow at him; _a little late, aren't you?_ When Freed sees that it was a false alarm, he straightens up as if nothing happened and slides the knife back into its hip sheath. "I heard screams?"

She grimaces at him before pointing at something sitting by the window right behind Bixlow. "In the bowl. It's fucking barbaric."

Bixlow turns around and peers down curiously. The goldfish bowl looks innocent enough at first glance, but after looking closer, he can see the dark clotted mess of something fleshy and brutalised resting at the bottom. "... _Eugh_." He reaches in and grabs the bloody lump for closer inspection. "Someone forgot a kidney."

Evergreen lets out a strangled scream. "Don't pick it up! Oh my _God_ , Bixlow..." She looks like she's going to gag again.

Freed also looks mildly disgusted. "Well, that's..."

"Distasteful?" Bixlow supplies.

He nods silently and wrinkles his nose.

"It's still kind of fresh." He raises it to his nose and sniffs experimentally. "Barely rotting."

"Maybe it's from a biter," Evergreen mumbles doubtfully, now inspecting the other contents of the shelves.

The living room reveals itself to be full of gruesome odds and ends. Bixlow would love for Ever to be right, honestly. The dead, decaying, and derelict, he can handle — it's the living he's got a problem with. Especially the type who leave random human organs littered around their house.

He gives the kidney another squeeze. The trickle of blood down his hand ruins all his hopes for a quiet resolution. "Nah, too much blood. A biter would have bled out long before someone had a chance to cut it open."

Evergreen pulls a drawer open to find it full of fingers. Just severed fingers, some skinned, all carelessly stuffed in like tubes of smarties.

 _Of course._

She slams it shut, pulls her pistol out of its holster and raises it, spinning around the survey the room on full alert. "This house is—"

"Cannibals." Freed spins the machete in his hand. "Did you scout upstairs?"

"No, I didn't have—" _time_. Bixlow cuts off, the implication setting in.

The three of them look up at the ceiling as the realisation sets in that they might not be alone. Every creak of the house could be someone walking above them, someone finding hiding places and lying in wait. They might even be trapped in an ambush already. There's no way of knowing.

"We should go b—" Bixlow starts, but one look at Freed's face tells him there's no chance of it. This is their best lead for Laxus. No way in hell Freed — or really, any of them — are gonna give up so easily, so early on their search. Bixlow gets it, he really really does — so he doesn't argue but instead swallows down his words, readjusts his visor, and rolls his shoulder that'll take the rifle kickback.

"Alrighty then." He grins wide. "Let's go hunting."

.

.

* * *

 **Natsu**

.

.

"No, no, wait, sorry." Wendy shifts, squirming for a second so that the snagged strap of her bag comes loose from the metal overhang. "Right, I'm okay. Let's keep going."

Natsu nods, turning back around to face the front. They've been making their way down the fire escape for the better part of the morning, the sun scaling the sky and burning their backs. If he had to guess, Natsu would suppose they've been at it for three hours at least.

It's not the height or distance — they've done worse under harsher conditions — but the stairs are so steep that Charle and Happy are in real danger of stepping wrong and tripping. So along with their weapons, all their food, and the camping equipment, both Natsu and Wendy have the added weight of an eleven year old kid on their backs. And the sun is hot today, hot like its been for the past two weeks, and they've been rationing water for better half of the heatwave already. The weather in Fiore can be unforgiving when it wants to be, and the silent summer is proving to be brutal.

Step by step, they carefully descend the metal fire escape — which itself is hot enough to burn bare skin even before midday. It's sweaty work, monotonous and risky, but Natsu knows he can handle it. He's always been athletic, been strong for his age, sturdily built, and at twenty two all his long-distance training gave him leg muscles capable of prolonged periods of intensity. He's done enough mountain-climbing to leave him with sure fingers and strong shoulders, enough hiking to be sure-footed in every worst-case scenario.

He'll be fine. It's Wendy he's worried about.

Part of Natsu thinks he's worrying for nothing. She's strong for a girl of her size and age, without a doubt, and she has the determination to make up for what she lacks — but even now, he can hear her panting get louder, and their breaks are getting longer. He has half a mind to have Charle and Happy walk themselves and just risk it, because it's really starting to look like Wendy won't be able to take much more of this. And Natsu knows that the second they hit the ground, they're gonna be away on-and-off running for hours. They'll have to put as much distance between them and the crowded areas as they can, get out of the city as fast as possible or they'll risk being discovered by the herd or, arguably worse, getting lost in the city by nightfall.

There are worse things than the walking dead. And he doesn't want to stick around to find out exactly what they are.

"Hey, Wendy—" Natsu begins, but cuts off immediately when he hears it.

It's quiet. Far away. Unfamiliar, muffled through the city streets. But Natsu hears it without a doubt, and he knows he's not alone by the way Happy has tensed against his back.

Someone is screaming.

Before he really knows what he's doing, he's sprinting down the fire escape two steps at a time, tightening his hold on Happy's legs as Happy's grips his shoulders. He can hear Wendy's clumsy fumbling behind as she follows as fast as she can.

"Wait! _Wait!_ " Charle shouts, her voice jumping from Wendy's running. "Natsu!"

They're only two storeys from the ground when the screaming rounds the corner.

Two people are sprinting at full pelt down the road, guns in hand. Natsu can guess they abandoned their packs far behind, and from the way they're running, he's sure they're out of bullets. A tall white-haired man and a pink-haired girl probably Wendy's age — she must have been the one who screamed. Neither of them seem to be able to keep running for much longer, both panting heavily, and a moment later it becomes clear why.

Natsu hears the groaning snarls before he sees them, and the sound is overwhelming. It's bigger than the herd they had to skirt by yesterday, maybe even twice the size.

"Here! Over here!" Wendy shouts at them, jumping up and down to draw their attention. Charle has leapt off her back already and is leaning over the railing anxiously. "Climb up the stairs!"

Neither of them hear, Natsu realises. They haven't noticed them.

"Natsu..." Happy whines in his ear. "We need to do something!"

"Happy!" Charle reprimands. "If we go down there, we could—"

"We have a chance of helping them, Charle," Natsu cuts her off. "Is there a choice here?"

The young girl holds his gaze for a second, desperately looking like she wants to say something, before glancing away and nodding reluctantly. "Okay. Okay, alright. So what do we do?"

The first stragglers from the herd have rounded the corner. They're slow, barely dragging themselves along on their rotting legs, but the sheer numbers are overwhelming as they pour into the road, and the sight leaves Natsu's pulse racing. "I don't know. Shoot. Run. Hope they follow?"

Wendy breathes out, grinning. "Good game plan. I like it."

"Foolproof," Happy agrees with a laugh.

"Hey, wait, no way! You guys wait here—"

Suddenly, planning doesn't seem to be an option anymore. Some of the biters are separating from the main group and making their way across the road towards their building: they've been spotted. Either they get down now, or not at all.

"Lyon!" The girl on the sidewalk slows down, and Natsu swears he can hear her ragged breathing from here. "Lyon, I can't anymore!"

Wendy sets off down the last flight of stairs at a sprint with Charle at her heels.

"You good, Happy?" Natsu whispers, moving to follow them.

Instead of answering, the young boy just leaps off his back and grins shakily, braces himself with a deep breath, and starts running.

All Natsu can think, though, is how small he looks. Small and brave.

.

.

* * *

 **Erza**

.

.

Levy grimaces as she fishes the last item from the bag, a tub with a yellowing label. "And some chocolate pudding. Apparently, that's everything." She gives the bag a little shake just to make sure, but she's right — Erza can see its limp form as well as anyone.

"It's not enough." It's not _nearly_ enough. No-one has to say it, but she can feel it in the air as the realisation begins to set in. They'll have to make another run, and soon. Very soon.

"It ain't nothing," Gajeel reminds Levy as she dejectedly casts the sack aside.

"It's not enough," Erza repeats.

"But it's _something_." Gray switches the gear into fifth, trying to play off that he out-and-out backed Gajeel. "It's enough for now."

The mood in the caravan lightens slightly, and Erza manages a small smile as she settles back against the window and rests her her head against the cool glass. She can hear Gajeel rustling around through his bag and pulling off the stopper from the water bottle. Her own throat feels parched. It has done for days. But they have to ration the water, and the weather doesn't look like it's gonna get cooler any time soon.

The rumbling of the heavy vehicle against her forehead is loud and comforting. It blocks out her own thoughts — thoughts of her family hungry, thirsty, and vulnerable behind weak walls, waiting for her group to come back with some sort of miracle that Erza knows she doesn't have. The white noise of the rumbling road lets her rest, even if just for a little bit. She's found that, ever since the turn, these little quiet moments are precious and rare. They have to be appreciated. She's even learnt to enjoy the silence, and the peace.

When a loud bang sounds, Erza eyes flash open as she starts. She fell asleep... Beside her, Levy does the same, her head rising from her folded forearms. She and Erza share a wide-eyed look. Before anyone can ask, another bang goes off — loud, close and unmistakable.

Erza jumps from her chair and moves to join Gray in the front while Gajeel and Levy peer through the windshield behind here. Gray's slowed the car down, scanning the flat landscape with cautious eyes.

"Gray," she says, doing the same.

"Yeah." He nods, bringing the car to a stop. "Gunshots." And they all know what that means — company and trouble. "The problem is... where?"

More shots go off, faster and closer together than the last. Someone's being chased. "There's more than one," Gajeel murmurs, leaning over Erza's shoulder. "Three, maybe four."

"It doesn't sound like it's a herd." Levy runs back to the table and throw the window above it open. Through the open window, the shots sound so much louder — and closer. Erza grits her teeth, her hand tightening almost subconsciously around the handle of the knife at her waist. "But they sound busy, maybe even overrun. We could get by without them noticing."

"If they don't know we're already here," Gray says.

"If we decide that leaving them to their fate is what we wanna do here," Gajeel hisses too quickly.

"They could be dangerous—"

"I know that," Gajeel cuts Erza off. "You really think I don't know that? _Me?_ " She doesn't quail under his gaze, but does raise an eyebrow. It's unlike him to bring up his own past willingly. He shrugs in defence. "I don't want any more blood on my hands today, alright? Three lives are enough."

Silently she agrees. Three is enough, enough for one day. Enough for as long as the world will give them. But enough doesn't protect them from desperate stragglers in a heatwave.

"Gajeel—" Gray starts.

"If they've seen us, they'll follow us. You wanna take care of them here, or at the walls of Fairy Tail?"

The consensus is mute. Silence envelopes them as the gunshots stop. Everyone in the car stays deceptively still, waiting it out. Whatever happens next, they wanna be ready.

Levy's suddenly jumps. "There! On the overhang, look!"

She points out the window towards a nearby bridge that stretches over the highway. Gray opens his door for a better view and, sure enough, they see moving figures standing on top of the abandoned cars, guns in hand. Silhouetted against the sky beside them is a swarm of clumsy movement. More than Erza had expected.

Without another word, Gray's out the car and sprinting towards the steep dirt incline across from them. Gajeel follows without a word, and Erza barely has time to grab her rifle from the passenger seat before she, too, is off running across the hot dusty tarmac towards the hill.

As she runs, she makes sure her rifle is loaded and cocks the gun, quickly locking it against her shoulder. The figures atop the cars are shooting again, more insistently this time. She keeps one eye on them as she runs up the incline as fast as she can — one leaps off a car and starts taking the walkers on one by one with what might be a machete.

Gray, having reached the top already, clambers to the top of a tall Toyota truck and adjusts his sights. By the time Gajeel runs into the swarm with a roar and starts swinging his axe at the heads of as many as are in his range, Gray's sniping has taken down three.

When she sees the numbers, Erza drops the rifle beside her and pulls both her pistols out. Her aim isn't perfect, but it's damn near good enough to get most of them in the head with one shot, left or right. A quick glance behind tells her that Levy has positioned herself a little in front of Gray's car and picked up Erza's rifle.

One of the figures on the other side of the swarm lets out a cry of alarm. It's a girl from the sound of it, and Erza looks up just in time to see her toss the gun away and grab what looks like a crowbar. But she can't pay attention to them for more than a second before a zombie in front of her gets too close for comfort, forcing her to duck back before slamming it's skull in with the blunt end of her gun. She drops the gun and pulls a long knife from her belt, joining Gajeel in the fray.

The swarm numbers twenty, Erza guesses. On the far side, she can see bodies littering the ground and she finds herself impressed. Whoever these people are, they're capable. Survivors, just like Erza. And that worries her.

The massacre is over in a few minutes. With one of the strangers still shooting from a car top on the far side, the other two fighting melee alongside Gajeel and herself, and Gray and Levy backing them up from the rear, the twenty biters really stood no chance at an easy meal.

But it still leaves the stench of rotting flesh in her nose and her hands soaked with blood. And the horror of it never really wears off, either. She's been at this for ten months now, almost a year, and she still can't get over the terror she feels in that moment before she stabs them in the head, when she's caught them by the jacket or by their hair and she's staring into their hollow eyes and all she can think about is what if someone's still in there, trapped by feral violence and an infection, and can feel what she's about to do it to them? Erza wonders every time, can't help but feel sorry — and every time, she stabs their brain just like she's supposed to. Just like she has to.

Wiping some of the splattered gore from her forehead, she glances around to take inventory. Besides a few dirt patches on their hands and knees, Gray and Levy are virtually spotless. Gajeel, on the other hand, looks even worse off than she is, with both arms bright red up to the elbows. Only once they're all within a metre of each other does Erza turn to face the other group across the mass of bodies littered over the overhang highway.

Right. Now comes the hard part.

.

.

* * *

 **Bixlow**

.

.

Bixlow isn't surprised when the last room upstairs reveals itself to be as empty as the others. After a cursory glance around, he shuts the door behind him and quietly pads down the hallway. Across from him, Freed exits the master bedroom empty-handed as well, and they share a look of understanding.

"It's so empty I feel a little lonely."

Freed nods, but the worry doesn't leave his face. "They were definitely here, and now they're not."

"Yeah," Bixlow agrees. "I wonder which one's worse. Not that I'm jumping at the chance to deal with either."

No cannibals means that they're either hiding and waiting to ambush them, or that they're away for whatever reason. There's the slight chance they might have moved on, but by the looks of things, they planned to return to their safehouse. When, Bixlow can't tell. But when they do, they'll know that someone searched it, and their nature — and the drawer full of salted fingers — does seem to suggest that they won't let a meal get away that easy. The last thing he wants is to lead them straight back to Fairy Tail on the off chance that they're good enough at tracking to pull something like that off.

All their best options seem to involve coming face to face with a group of cannibals. Which isn't _exactly_ desirable, to say the least...

Downstairs, Evergreen is staring at the kidney again. He rubs her her head affectionately as he passes on his way to the kitchen. In a panic, it looks like Freed forgot to check for supplies. "Ever, I thought you hated that thing."

"I do hate it," she calls to him in the kitchen. "It's absolutely disgusting. It's an _atrocity_."

"So what are you doing—" he pulls open a cabinet with low hopes, and ends up pleasantly surprised when instead of a jar of eyeballs, boxes of biscuits await him "—looking at the fishbowl again?"

"It's disgusting," she repeats slowly, following him into the kitchen, "and disgusting things should be eradicated."

Pausing in his extraction of a cookie, Bixlow turns around, a little wary. "Eradicated, huh?"

She nods sagely. "And punished."

Freed follows her in, one eyebrow raised. "So what you're saying is—"

"—we fuck them over?" Bixlow barks out a laugh, abandoning the food for his rifle and jerking it in the air to cock it. "I'm game."

"They won't have another safehouse," Freed hums thoughtfully, the corners of his lips tilting in the faintest of smirks.

It dawns on Bixlow what his friends are insinuating. His grin turns feral. "They'll follow us"

Evergreen files out a nail with the sharp end of her knife. The sunlight shining in through the window reflects on her glasses, turning them opaque for a moment as she cocks her head. Wiggling her fingers as if examining her handiwork, she smiles wide and eager. "Good." She glances up. "You know, there's a great deal to be done with fingers that are still attached. We should... enlighten them. Don't you think?"

.

.

* * *

 **Lucy**

.

.

Lucy runs.

Panting and gasping and crying, tripping over every root and stumbling under branch after branch. Behind her, close, far too close, she can hear the screams.

The smell chokes her — it's in her nose, clogging up her lungs, making her gag. The stench of burning bodies and rotting flesh. Obscured through the smoke, her shadow runs with her, flickering from the fiery blaze burning far behind.

Her right arm feels like it's burning right along with it. Her hand is slick with blood, and every time she trips and falls, her shoulder jars against the ground and she shrieks without meaning to. Blood pounds in her ears and the only clear sound is that of her own desperate breathing. If the smoke wasn't blinding her, the pain would be, she's sure.

But she can't stop, and she can't look back. The prison is overrun. There's no going back for her.

She'll look for her Ma, Lucy swears she will. She'll loop around and look for other survivors, she'll find her — she _has_ to. Her father will have kept her safe for sure, there's no question about it. They'll have escaped, they'll have gotten out early and thought she had done the same. They'll be alive somewhere. Lucy knows it. She _has_ to believe it.

So, instead of looking for any longer, instead of waiting to be burnt alive or ripped to pieces, Lucy just ran.

She gets the hang of jumping over roots and recognising the branches that will whip forward and cut her cheek if she lets them flick fast enough. The smoke becomes fog, but the day gets lighter and the screams die into the distance. She can still smell burnt flesh, but her lungs don't choke on the stench anymore.

Lucy runs as fast as she can, forward through a forest she's never known, finally outside the prison walls she's resented for ten months. In her mind, the images still roll over and over — the man writhing in pain, shrieking, the sick gargles as he choked on his own blood, half of his throat in another biter's mouth. And the gnashing teeth, the clawed hands, those empty empty eyes and cheeks hollow and sunken and sickly pale — Lucy remembers it all, it plays in front of her eyes like a ghost she can't escape.

She jumps too late and her foot catches on another tree root, taking her down. She clenches her teeth around the scream, and takes a deep breath as she tries to get back up. She needs to get up, she _has_ to, or they'll catch her, those— those _monsters_.

When she casts a fleeting look at her arm, she's horrified. The source of the burning flesh reveals itself; angry red blisters cover her forearm, blood running between them from a weeping gash that curls deep and wide down her bicep. The nails of her hand look charred, the skin shiny and taught or charred away altogether. It looks like something out of a horror film. It looks like it's not a part of her body.

If she doesn't treat this cut, _now_ , it'll get infected. It'll fester. And she knows what comes after that. As for her burnt hand… She has no way of ascertaining the severity of the damage, but that the pain still shrieks through her veins is a good sign: the nerves survived.

But she can't afford to stop and wrap the cut — nevermind her complete lack of supplies, but she's out here in the open, defenceless and vulnerable. If a biter were to come at her now, the best she could do is run in the other direction and hope she can find a hiding place before it catches up to her.

And that's only if she doesn't freeze again. She may be unfamiliar with the new world, but Lucy knows that that no kind strangers will sacrifice themselves for her out here.

She scrambles to her feet, throwing frantic looks left and right for threats, and she's off again, stumbling through the undergrowth. Has it been an hour? Three? Or ten minutes? She can't tell, and the fog is thick enough to veil the sun. All she knows is that she can't look back...

A sudden shout to her left stops her in her tracks. Instinctively, she ducks behind the closest tree that's wide enough to hide her frame. There's no hiding her loud panting, but she works on quietening her breaths best she can in hopes of concealing herself. More yells follow — male voices. They don't sound like they're running, but they're close, she can tell that much. A nearby rustling indicates their steps.

Half of her wants to run to them and ask for their help. They're people and they're alive, just like her — surely, in a world like this, even that much in common is enough! They could help her. They could keep her alive.

But Lucy also has a gut feeling that running to them would be running to her death. A quick glance back shows her the burning blaze, visible for miles around. And yet, they're in no hurry. They're not scrambling to try and save anyone.

Too late, Lucy realises that the rustling has stopped.

A vice grip tightens around her injured arm and she shrieks as she's pushed to the ground. "Well, would you look at that, hmmm," someone croons above her. She looks up to see a wide mouth full of crooked teeth. Small, cruel eyes crinkle in glee. "A cute little girl, all alone. Where's your people, eh, hun?" He glances up at the chaos in the distance. "That there mess your lot?"

"She's good enough." Another one reveals himself. Looking around in panic, she counts eleven of them, at _least_.

"A bit far from the safehouse, though—"

"Nah, it's fine, we can cut her up here, build a fire… Ain't nobody gonna notice it with that thing blazing away. Here's good enough."

"God, I'm fucking starved. Let's have her already—"

"Come on, man, get it done."

Bile rises up in her throat and spews out in a burning mouthful. She can hardly believe she's hearing their words right. This is a new world to her, she doesn't know the rules, but have people fallen so far so fast? Is this what's normal, now? Is this what walls were protecting her from?

The grip on her arm tightens. She whimpers as it drags her up. When she looks, the man with the crooked teeth is examining her hand. Lucy flinches away, skin crawling.

"Let go of me," she hisses.

He catches her gaze and chuckles, licking his teeth as he leers. "Those are some nice little fingers you've got there, huh, girlie?"

* * *

.

.

 _ **Warnings:** violence and gore (explicit), burns_ _(mildly graphic), body gore/injury (explicit), cannibalism (implicit)._


End file.
